In the early years of the development of land vehicles which were powered other than by horse, some initial steps were made with the use of steam generating power plants. The development of gasoline brought about the development of the internal combustion engine using this fluid and the apparent abundance of this fluid for power source dictated the general development of power plants for land vehicles. There were experiments made with the use of electric automobiles but as with their counterparts today, the lack of range of such vehicles together with a lack of sufficient power to produce any relative speed finally resulted in their general exclusion from the market. There was a redevelopment of the use of steam driven land vehicles. One of the more notable was that of the Stanley. These cars were powered by steam and could provide a reasonable amount of range and adequate speed. In fact, the speed was governed only by the willingness of the driver to open the throttle to its limit. The steam automobile was also faced with the problem of excess pressure which resulted in explosion of the power plant and so it also fell into disuse.
Concerns about the effects of the environment from the pollutants from the exhaust fumes from the internal combustion engine aided by the increase in price of petroleum brought about a renewed interest in the development of power plants for land vehicles which do not rely upon an internal combustion engine. The electric powered vehicle again came into consideration but the present commercial state of the art as far as commercially available battery power sources has generally restricted the development of such electric powered vehicles.
There is obviously a need for a type of power plant which is independent of the requirement for internal combustion engines and which, like the electric powered automobile, will not provide pollutants. There is a requirement to develop a power plant which can utilize the motion of the vehicle in some form to regenerate power to prolong the range of the vehicle. It is readily apparent that, with the present technology, it is probably not possible for regeneration of enough power as is expended in moving the vehicle to prolong this range. This would, in effect, almost be a perpetual motion operation and considering at least the forces of friction which are involved, this is not feasible. Some attempt is being made in the field of regeneration of power in the case of electric powered vehicles in that some of the braking systems are designed to regenerate braking systems to restore some power to the batteries.